Lu Zhaoming asked a few questions about how the spatial rift had appeared, and Lu Shiyan answered each one.
His tone was strictly business, but his attitude could only be described as obedient.
Jiang Nuan nearly failed to hold back a laugh, her gaze shifting back and forth between the two men.
The same curve of the brow. The same habit of slightly lifting the chin while speaking.
One was completely unaware. The other was utterly impenetrable.
She suddenly felt as if she had stumbled into a reunion between a father and son that should have happened, but never would.
“Captain Lu,” Lu Shiyan said, steering the conversation back to business, “in theory, this sealed rift shouldn’t have appeared tonight.”
He paused, his gaze falling on the patch of night sky above the arched bridge, where the tear had already closed again.
“If even something that shouldn’t happen has happened, can we really say that using the energy from the seal’s abnormal fluctuations is a viable solution?”
For a moment, Jiang Nuan felt as though she couldn’t breathe.
He was standing before his own father, asking in a restrained voice about an ending whose answer he had known for a long time.
“It can work.” Lu Zhaoming’s answer came without the slightest hesitation. “Tonight was only an accident.”
Those words, spoken by Lu Zhaoming, should have been immensely reassuring.
He was the strongest ability user recognized by the entire Federation. If he said everything was fine, then everything was fine.
Just as people in that era believed: as long as he was there, everything would be all right.
Jiang Nuan lowered her head, suddenly afraid to look at Lu Shiyan’s face.
She was afraid of seeing his expression, afraid of seeing the thing that came from knowing the ending yet being unable to speak of it.
“Oh, right. About what happened tonight…” Lu Zhaoming’s tone remained gentle, but he was not making a request. “If word gets out that the seal fluctuated, the public will inevitably panic. I’ll reinforce it over the next couple of days, but until then, I hope you can help keep this confidential.”
“I understand.” Lu Shiyan was silent for a moment before nodding. “No fourth person will know.”
“Thank you.” Lu Zhaoming inclined his head, his gaze lingering on Lu Shiyan’s face once more. “Every time I see you, it feels like looking into a mirror. Fate really is a mysterious thing.”
“Indeed.” Lu Shiyan looked at the man before him without dwelling on the subject. Instead, he smoothly changed the topic. “In any case, thank you for stepping in tonight, Captain Lu. I’ll pay you a visit another day to express my gratitude.”
When he said the words “another day,” the fingers hanging at his side curled inward unconsciously.
A father treating his own son like a stranger while marveling at the ties of fate.
Jiang Nuan felt a dull ache in her chest.
Lu Zhaoming shook his head. “I should be the one thanking Governor Lu.”
He nodded to the two of them in farewell and turned to leave.
With his back to the moonlight, his shadow stretched long across the snow.
After walking a few steps, he suddenly stopped.
“Oh, right.”
His gaze fell first on Jiang Nuan and lingered for a moment.
In that instant, Jiang Nuan had the strange feeling that she was being regarded gently by an elder. Then his eyes shifted to Lu Shiyan before returning to her.
“Little miss, don’t forget about the gala,” Lu Zhaoming said with a smile. “Governor Lu, too. I look forward to seeing you there.”
He said the final “too” so casually, naturally grouping the two of them together in the same invitation.
Jiang Nuan replied, “I won’t forget.”
Then, almost instinctively, she looked at Lu Shiyan.
His expression remained unchanged. He even gave a slight nod in response. “I certainly will.”
But at the exact moment Lu Zhaoming turned away, his breathing paused for half a beat.
A biological father’s gaze was devastatingly powerful, even when filtered through a layer of assumed identities.
***
Lu Zhaoming’s figure vanished from where he stood, just as silently as when he had arrived.
The wind swept snow across the ice.
The sky above the arched bridge was calm and undisturbed, as though the rift that had torn across the heavens moments ago had never existed.
Lu Shiyan remained where he was, facing the direction in which Lu Zhaoming had disappeared.
Several minutes passed before he turned around.
Then, without warning, he pulled her toward him.
One hand cradled the back of her head while the other wrapped around her waist, holding her with enough force to crush her into his bones.
Jiang Nuan stiffened all over. With a sigh in her heart, she raised her arms and gently embraced his back.
“…Lu Shiyan.”
She wasn’t sure whether this was the right thing to do, but she did it anyway.
Beneath her palm, his body was tense beneath his uniform, his breathing uneven.
The embrace lasted a long time—much longer than Jiang Nuan had expected.
Then his arm withdrew from her waist, and the hand clasping the back of her head moved away as well.
But before he fully pulled back, his fingers slid down along her arm and finally closed around her hand.
Her entire hand was enveloped in his palm.
Jiang Nuan looked awkwardly at their joined hands. “Lu Shiyan, don’t normal people ask, ‘May I hold your hand?’ first?”
“Normal people do.”
“…And?”
“So I didn’t ask.”
Jiang Nuan ground her back teeth together.
She knew it. She just knew it. Lu Shiyan’s brief flash of humanity wouldn’t last long.
The two of them walked back hand in hand, their feet crunching over the snow beneath the moonlight.
Neither of them said a word.
***
When Jiang Nuan got into the car, her safety belt still unfastened, her terminal lit up.
Qinian: Jiang! Nuan!! Where did you two go?? Why did it take so long?
Qinian: Never mind. I don’t want to know.
Qinian: No, wait, I do want to know.
Qinian: Answer me!!
Jiang Nuan stared at the screen, the corner of her mouth twitching despite herself.
Lu Shiyan got into the driver’s seat and glanced sideways at her screen.
She braced herself and typed a few words.
Jiang Nuan: We went for a walk. The signal was bad, so I just saw this.
Less than three seconds after she sent the message, her terminal began vibrating nonstop.
Qinian: A walk?
Qinian: In the middle of the night, when it’s below freezing?
Qinian: How high do you think my IQ is?
Qinian: Single digits?
Jiang Nuan was about to type a reply. Her finger had barely touched the screen when that scorching gaze pressed against her again from the side.
She turned her head stiffly.
Lu Shiyan was leaning back in the driver’s seat, his head turned slightly, his calm eyes resting on the glowing screen in her hand.
Then he leaned over and reached out to fasten her safety belt.
The buckle clicked shut.
He lifted his hand and tapped several times on his own terminal. Jiang Nuan turned her head to look.
Lu Shiyan: The signal really was bad. We’re in the car and on our way back.
Recipient: Qinian.
Jiang Nuan’s terminal instantly fell silent.
She could imagine the expression on Qinian’s face as he stared at the screen on the other end.
Probably his mouth opening and closing, then closing and opening again, before finally hurling his terminal into the cushions of the sofa.
The man beside her rested one hand on the steering wheel. The reflected glow of the terminal screen brushed across his profile.
The tension that had gripped him beneath the arched bridge had completely dissipated. His expression was relaxed and placid, with the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
He seemed nothing like the person who, only minutes ago, had held her tightly in his arms, breathing heavily as if he were drowning.
Jiang Nuan couldn’t tell exactly when he had recovered.
Was it when he sent that message to Qinian? When he fastened her safety belt? Or earlier still, when he had taken her hand in the snow?
Jiang Nuan turned her gaze back to the windshield, watching snowflakes pelt the glass, only to be swept away by the wipers.
She hadn’t figured out the answer to that question. What she understood even less was why she was bothering to think about it at all.
The snow must have been especially heavy tonight. It had probably frozen her brain.
